One of the most widely known and studied medicinal properties of hops is its ability to induce sleep. In the European HMPC (Herbal Medicinal Product Committee) Monographs hops are officially recommended as traditional herbal medicinal product for relief of mild symptoms of mental stress and to aid sleep.

Micro-brewing in Italy: A success story

The seventh European Beer Star (EBS) held in 2010 was a great success: An expert panel consisting of 88 jury members from 21 countries assessed 955 beers from more than 34 countries and awarded gold, silver and bronze medals in 44 different categories – from German-style Kellerbier, Bohemian-style pilsner and various Hefeweizen specialties to English ale, stout and herb and spice beer. Apparently, there had never been so many participating breweries and so many different breweries from different countries that made it into the winner lists.

In order to better inform our customers and our research, Hopsteiner has created a most detailed picture of hop cone development in conjunction with botanical experts at New York Botanical Gardens. The new botanical standard provides great detail on morphology of hop cones and can be used by growers, scientists and technical brewers alike to compare studies of flavor change over hop cone maturation in the field.

In order to produce beers with a unique character that can easily be distinguished from other brands, brewers worldwide focus more and more on new and special aroma varieties. In 2010 the new American variety “Delta” was commercially grown for the first time and the brewers’ feedback has been promising.

The pasteurization of beer and in particular the flash pasteurization is a widely used technique for the biological product stabilization. In spite of the large extend of experience with the pasteurization the way how it is used in practice is a comparably rough method of low precision. In order to precisely adjust the two core process parameters temperature and exposition time detailed knowledge about the individual microbiological inactivation kinetics as well as about specific process and equipment characteristics is required. The article first considers the questions of the biologically demanded thermal load in terms of “required Pasteurization Units (PU)”. The assumed underlying thermal death kinetics and the determination of the necessary logarithmic cell count reduction are discussed. Every claim demanding for a particular target PU for specific kinds of beers (or other beverages) base naturally upon simplifications and assumptions concerning the initial and target cell counts and the D-values of present microorganism. The necessity of both species/strain and matrix specific D-values are pointed out.

Malt is an important industrial product with a huge market outlet. The diverse microbial communities naturally colonizing barley grains greatly influence malt quality and subsequently other products in the malt value chain, in particular beer. In this manuscript, an overview is given of current knowledge of barley and malt-derived microorganisms and their impact on malt properties. In addition, emphasis is put on strategies to enhance the malting process, including the use of starter cultures and the management of endogenous microflora. Molecular studies on microbial community composition and function throughout the process will contribute to efficient implementation of these strategies, ultimately leading to more efficient wort production and enhanced beer flavour quality and stability..

The coherence of particle size distribution and reaction behaviour is well-known in process engineering as well as in the brewing industry [15, 17, 21]. Additionally, the particle size distribution can give precious information about the status quo of several processes. Usually, in the brewhouse, only the particle size distribution of the malt grist is measured by sieving [4]. But, the particle size distribution changes during the mashing process. To measure these changes, wet sieving methods are possible but too complex to get fast and authentic results. Thus a fast and reproducible method is missing for mash. Therefore, an analysis method with laser diffraction was developed, which give brewers now the possibility to analyse the status of the mashing process..

Monitoring of flocculent and powdery yeast fractions in brewing processes

A rapid analysis of the amounts of flocculent and powdery yeasts is of major significance for improving brewing process management and for the quality of high attenuating beers. In the context of a research project B88 of WIFÖ Wissenschaftsförderung der deutschen Brauwirtschaft [EV] (Science Foundation of the German Beer Brewing Industries), a method has been developed that can differentiate between the sugar structures of the cell walls of the two yeast strains. This, however, will work only under defined laboratory conditions. The reasons are discussed below.

Hop pellets, conventional hop extracts (ethanol and CO2), isomerized kettle extracts (IKE, PIKE) and light stable kettle extracts (LSKE) are the products usually used in the brew house. Besides excellent storage stability, hop extracts are homogenous and therefore can be dosed precisely to add mainly bitterness to the beer.

British hop growers have the most exciting prospects since the 1960s, said Simon Jackson, Chief Executive of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling (IBD), speaking at the presentation ceremony for the Institute’s annual “English Hop Competition”.

Our new CO₂-Extraction plant in Mainburg, which has a capacity of approx. 4,000 tons of hops per year, started up in autumn 2010. This new investment is an extremely important addition to our well-established Ethanol-Extraction plant.